Tax burn: Many unhappy returns for Joe Average

By Harkavy in Featured, GOP, Geithner, Taxes
Thursday, Apr. 16 2009 @ 7:07AM
The latest returns aren't in but among the income-tax gripes that won't go away is what IRS workers say is a double standard on tax errors.

That's a real protest, unlike the "tea parties" being promoted by Fox News — see Jon Stewart's "Tempest in a Tea Party" last night — to try to give the GOP some sort of basic issue to rebuild the party other than feeding Rush Limbaugh to the troops.

Adding up the past failure to pay taxes by such Obama Administration appointees as Kathleen Sibelius, would-have-been appointees like Tom Daschle, and, of all people, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, the head of the IRS employees' union says her members are "upset and angry." The Chicago Tribune explains:

In some cases, IRS employees have lost jobs for simply filing a late return or failing to report a few hundred dollars of interest income.

In an interview Tuesday, [union chief Colleen] Kelley said the Geithner case underlines the need for a change of the rules governing IRS employees.

"My issue is not that I want Geithner or anyone else punished," Kelley said. "I want there to be a re-examination of the law that holds IRS employees to a separate standard: one in which a simple mistake can cost them their jobs with no right of appeal."

More on why they're seething:

"Politically powerful people are less likely to get bothered by the IRS," [California tax lawyer Robert] Schriebman said. "It is more than a question of fairness. Not only is the IRS looking away from confronting influential people, the IRS is getting a lot tougher and nastier toward the little guy."

Post a Comment


(If you haven't left a comment here before, you may need to be approved by the site owner before your comment will appear. Until then, it won't appear on the entry. Thanks for waiting.)

All reader comments are subject to our Terms of Use. By clicking "Post," you acknowledge that you have reviewed and agree to these Terms.